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The Peace Coalition of Southern Illinois - aggregated feedsenAntiWar.com News: Iraq Daily Roundup: ISIS Attack on Soldiers; Three Killed in Iraqhttps://original.antiwar.com/updates/2019/09/14/iraq-daily-roundup-isis-attack-on-soldiers-three-killed-in-iraq/
<p>Militants continue attacks in Diyala. </p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://original.antiwar.com/updates/2019/09/14/iraq-daily-roundup-isis-attack-on-soldiers-three-killed-in-iraq/">&lt;I&gt;Iraq Daily Roundup&lt;/I&gt;: ISIS Attack on Soldiers; Three&nbsp;Killed in Iraq</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://original.antiwar.com">Antiwar.com Original</a>.</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 23:48:07 -0500Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: Russia Has ‘Oligarchs,’ the US Has ‘Businessmen’ - In 150 NYT, CNN and Fox articles, ‘oligarch’ seems reserved for Slavic billionaireshttps://fair.org/home/russia-has-oligarchs-the-us-has-businessmen/
<p><b>by Alan MacLeod</b></p>
<p>Even in corporate media, you will occasionally see references to the United States as an “oligarchy.” That is the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/">judgment</a> of former President Jimmy Carter, of peer-reviewed <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B">academic studies</a>, and even opinion pieces in our most prestigious media (e.g., <b>Washington Post</b>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/08/rich-people-rule/">4/8/14</a>; <b>New Yorker</b>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy">4/18/14</a>). Indeed, Paul Krugman has been saying it in the <b>New York Times</b> (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/oligarchy-american-style.html">11/3/11</a>, <a href="https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/broken-windows-and-american-oligarchy/">5/15/15</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/opinion/future-billionaires.html?searchResultPosition=11">7/15/19</a>) for years. Just three men <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/08/bill-gates-jeff-bezos-warren-buffett-wealthier-than-poorest-half-of-us">hold more wealth</a> than the bottom 50% of the country combined, and the richest people in society use their money to influence media, society and the government.</p>
<div id="attachment_24962" style="width: 182px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-24962" class="size-full wp-image-24962" src="https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/davidkoch.jpg" alt="David Koch (cc photo: Fred Thompson)" width="172" height="203" /><p id="caption-attachment-24962" class="wp-caption-text"><em>Non-oligarch David Koch. (cc photo: Fred Thompson)</em></p></div>
<p>But if the US is an oligarchy, then who are the oligarchs? One candidate who has been in the news of late is conservative multibillionaire David Koch, who died August 23 (<b>FAIR.org</b>, <a href="https://fair.org/home/nyt-remembers-david-koch-more-as-philanthropist-than-polluter/">9/5/19</a>). Koch was the world’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/david-koch/#14378370659b">11th richest and 29th most powerful</a> person, according to <b>Forbes</b>, amassing a fortune of over $50 billion. The chemical and fossil fuel magnate used his enormous wealth to fund <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/environment">climate change denialists</a> and block efforts to address climate breakdown. He bankrolled a multitude of right-wing causes, including the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/30/581730998/koch-brothers-behind-tea-party-wave-face-democrats-rising-tide-in-2018?t=1567082112621">Tea Party</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/27/koch-brothers-time-magazine-media-power">conservative media</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/26/koch-brothers-americans-for-prosperity-rightwing-political-group">politicians</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/koch-brothers-think-tank-report-099791">think tanks</a>. Koch <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-27/koch-brothers-linked-group-declares-new-war-on-unions">undercut unions</a>, <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/14339/koch_brothers_gun_control">opposed</a> gun restrictions, blocked <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public-transit.html?module=inline">public transport initiatives</a> and thwarted moves towards <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/koch-brothers-retreat-focuses-health-care-midterm-elections-n776546">nationalized healthcare</a>. As such, he and his brother Charles have shaped the Republican Party and modern society more than almost anyone else.</p>
<p>Yet in their obituaries, even media catering to a more liberal audience refrained from using the term to describe him. “Philanthropist” was the preferred description in the <b>Washington Post</b> (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/david-koch-billionaire-industrialist-who-influenced-conservative-politics-dies-at-79/2019/08/23/91c29a20-a264-11e8-83d2-70203b8d7b44_story.html">8/23/19</a>) and <b>NBC</b> (<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/david-koch-billionaire-conservative-activist-philanthropist-dies-79-n1045696">8/23/19</a>). <b>CBS</b> <b>News</b> (<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-koch-died-conservative-donor-and-philanthropist-dead-age-79-2019-08-23/">8/23/19</a>) also described him as such, framing him as an “icon” who “committed millions to various hospitals for cancer research.” Meanwhile, the <b>New York Times</b> (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/us/david-koch-dead.html">8/23/19</a>) glowed over the “gregarious, socially prominent” “man-about town philanthropist,” who gave over $1 billion to charity. (See <b>FAIR.org</b>, <a href="https://fair.org/home/nyt-remembers-david-koch-more-as-philanthropist-than-polluter/">9/5/19</a>.) The tone of these articles was functionally identical to that of more conservative media, like <b>Fox News </b>(<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/david-koch-billionaire-philanthropist-and-prolific-gop-donor-dead-at-79">8/24/19</a>) or the <b>Wall Street Journal</b> (<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/billionaire-david-koch-who-spent-heavily-to-back-conservative-causes-dies-11566563837">8/23/19</a>).</p>
<p>Many outside the corporate media bubble were highly scornful of the coverage. Independent journalist Caitlin Johnston (<b>Medium</b>, <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-word-philanthropist-is-poisonous-72e1a29fc5c6">8/23/19</a>) remarked that if Koch were Russian, he would be called an “oligarch,” while the <b>Appeal</b>’s Adam H. Johnson claimed on <b>Twitter</b> (<a href="https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1164928644160131073">8/23/19</a>) that “oligarch” is a loaded term used exclusively for the elite of enemy foreign countries, and not our plutocrats.</p>
<h4><b>Who is and isn’t an oligarch, according to media</b></h4>
<p>To test these critiques, FAIR analyzed the 50 most recent articles using the search term “oligarch” from the <b>New York Times</b>, <b>CNN</b> and <b>Fox News</b> websites. (Full documentation, including a complete list of sources, used can be <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1djXndVvF0HW8SHh6VFssFNSpmMK7c6pT3uz_qY2F290/edit?usp=sharing">found here.</a>) The study sought to ascertain:</p>
<ol>
<li>Who is referred to as an oligarch?</li>
<li>Which countries are considered oligarchies?</li>
</ol>
<p>Yevgeny Prigozhin, Oleg Deripaska, Viktor Vekselberg, Victor Pinchuk, Roman Abramovich, Aras Agalarov: That is the full and distinctly Slavic-sounding list of people identified by <b>CNN</b> as “oligarchs.” Indeed, only two articles across the entire sample of 150 identified Westerners as such: one angry<b> New York Times</b> opinion piece (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/science/apollo-moon-space.html?searchResultPosition=19">15/7/19</a>) that creatively decried people like Elon Musk and Richard Branson as &#8220;rocket oligarchs,&#8221; and a <b>Tucker Carlson Tonight</b> segment (<b>Fox News</b>, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/cotton-southern-poverty-law-center-is-a-political-hate-group">4/2/19</a>) in which an NRA spokesperson attacked gun control advocate Cory Booker as a “constitutional oligarch.” The rest were all from Russia or former Eastern Bloc countries.</p>
<p>In the 150-article sample, Russia was described as an oligarchy in 89, while Ukraine was labeled as such in 35. The word was also used in connection to other ex-Eastern Bloc states in 13 articles: Those states were Moldova (6 times), Kazakhstan (twice), Hungary (twice), Georgia (twice) and Azerbaijan (once). Guatemala was also once referred to as possessing oligarchs. In all, 98% of countries referenced in connection to oligarchs were either Russia or formerly Soviet-dominated states.</p>
<p>In contrast, only 1% of articles mentioned the US in connection with oligarchs, which is all the more remarkable, considering all the outlets in the sample are US-based and devote vastly more time, space and words to US issues than Eastern European ones.</p>
<p>The fact that oligarch has taken on ethnic connotations was made doubly clear in a <b>New York Times</b> article (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/magazine/soccer-data-liverpool.html?searchResultPosition=41">5/22/19</a>) about the changing world of soccer. It noted (emphasis added):</p>
<blockquote><p>In 1997, the Egyptian <i>businessman</i> <i>and department store owner</i> Mohamed al-Fayed took control of Fulham, a London team in the second division, and led its promotion into the Premier League; in 2003, the Russian <i>oligarch</i> Roman Abramovich, who had made his fortune in oil, aluminum and steel, bought Chelsea; in 2007, Stan Kroenke, the <i>husband of a Wal-Mart heir</i>, began accumulating shares of Arsenal. That same year, the family that had controlled Liverpool for half a century sold out to two American <i>businessmen</i>, Tom Hicks and George Gillett.</p></blockquote>
<p>The word, <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/oligarch">defined in the <i>Cambridge Dictionary</i></a> as an individual or group of powerful people that control a country or industry, is surely as applicable to the Walton dynasty as to a mining giant like Abramovich, but US billionaires are merely “businessmen”—when they aren’t “philanthropists”—while Russians are “oligarchs.” In other words, our elites are engaged in normal economic activity or else looking out for the betterment of humanity, while theirs are nefariously dominating politics.</p>
<div id="attachment_9009287" style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9009287" class="wp-image-9009287 " src="https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-Colbert.png" alt="Steven Colbert talking about oligarchs" width="350" height="182" srcset="https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-Colbert.png 864w, https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-Colbert-300x156.png 300w, https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-Colbert-768x399.png 768w, https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-Colbert-640x333.png 640w" sizes="(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px" /><p id="caption-attachment-9009287" class="wp-caption-text"><em>&#8220;Especially in Russia&#8221; (<strong>Late Night</strong>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5YJ7mh8zWc">7/20/17</a>).</em></p></div>
<p>Many articles stressed these oligarchs’ apparent connections to President Vladimir Putin (e.g. <b>CNN</b>, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/20/politics/donald-trump-russia-investigation-michael-cohen/index.html">3/20/19</a>, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/22/politics/robert-mueller-investigation-what-we-know/index.html">3/22/19</a>), even when the oligarchs in question aren’t from Russia (<b>Fox News</b>, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/clinton-in-newly-revealed-classified-emails-discussed-secret-comms-channel-with-israel">3/21/19</a>, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/hunter-bidens-dealings-in-ukraine-emerge-as-2020-issue-for-joe-biden">5/14/19</a>). <b>Late Show</b> host Stephen Colbert (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5YJ7mh8zWc">7/20/17</a>) defined “oligarch” as “Russian for ‘rich guy don’t ask where his money came from.’” (“Oligarch” actually came to English from Ancient Greek.) To be fair, Colbert joked about the selective use of the term—explaining that &#8220;over there, the political system is controlled by wealthy elites who buy influence and pull strings of the government, whereas in America, we speak English.&#8221;</p>
<p>Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, however, was apparently quite serious with his xenophobic <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-may-28-2017-n765626">comments</a> that Russians were “genetically driven” to nefarious ends like co-optation and gaining favor. The guest of one <b>Fox News</b> show (<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/tiger-woods-facing-political-backlash-over-accepting-presidential-medal-of-freedom">5/7/19</a>) referred to a “Russian” before switching that to a “Ukranian oligarch,” suggesting the entire region was an amorphous mass of devious, plotting, <a href="https://thestrand.ca/the-slavic-squat-phenomenon/">squatting</a> Slavs.</p>
<p>There was very little difference between how the three outlets used the term. <b>Fox News</b> was a little more likely to reference Ukraine, primarily because it closely covered the story of Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/joe-bidens-son-advised-crooked-romanian-businessman-sentenced-over-corruption">connection</a> to a Ukranian business executive, while <b>CNN</b>’s commitment to <a href="https://fair.org/home/the-utility-of-the-russiagate-conspiracy/">Russiagate</a> encouraged it to connect oligarchs personally to Vladimir Putin. But overall, the three outlets displayed a shared tendency in how and to whom they applied the word.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter wp-image-9009289" src="https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-NYT-CNN-Fox.png" alt="Use of &quot;Oligarch&quot; in NYT, CNN, Fox" width="600" height="171" srcset="https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-NYT-CNN-Fox.png 1008w, https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-NYT-CNN-Fox-300x85.png 300w, https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-NYT-CNN-Fox-768x219.png 768w, https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Oligarch-NYT-CNN-Fox-640x182.png 640w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></p>
<p>While not labeling its own wealthy and powerful elites as “oligarchs,” US corporate media do, as noted, occasionally acknowledge that the United States itself is an oligarchy. But even those admissions are few and far between, appearing for the most part only in articles devoted to arguing exactly that point. Otherwise, the US is <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2018.00064/full">overwhelmingly presented </a>as a democracy and a force for good in reporting.</p>
<p>And when a politician like Bernie Sanders suggests that these oligarchs influence the media, senior editors react angrily, claiming he is “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/13/politics/bernie-sanders-washington-post-amazon-jeff-bezos/index.html">ridiculous</a>” and a “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/12/politics/bernie-sanders-washington-post/index.html">conspiracy theorist</a>.” What a strange country the US is—an oligarchy without any oligarchs.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 18:04:17 -0500TruthDig.com News: Drug Companies Seek to Disqualify Judge in Opioids Suitshttps://www.truthdig.com/articles/drug-companies-seek-to-disqualify-judge-in-opioids-suits/
<p>CLEVELAND&#8212; Attorneys for eight drug distributors, pharmacies and retailers facing trial next month for their roles in the opioid crisis want to disqualify the federal judge overseeing their cases, saying he has shown bias in his effort to obtain a multibillion-dollar global settlement.</p>
<p>According to the motion filed late Friday in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, where Judge Dan Polster presides over most of the 2,000 lawsuits filed by state, local and tribal governments, the judicial code requires judges to recuse themselves when there is an appearance of prejudice or bias.</p>
<p>The attorneys wrote that Polster has made comments during hearings, media interviews and public forums about the importance of getting help to governments struggling to contain a crisis that has killed 400,000 people nationally since 2000.</p>
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<p>&#8220;Defendants do not bring this motion lightly,&#8221; the motion said. &#8220;Taken as a whole and viewed objectively, the record clearly demonstrates that recusal is necessary.&#8221;</p>
<p>Polster has not responded to the motion filed by attorneys for the drug distributors AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., McKesson Corp. and Henry Schein Inc.; drugstore chains CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens; and retailer Walmart.</p>
<p>Next month&#8217;s trial on behalf of the Ohio counties of Summit, which includes Akron, and Cuyahoga, which includes Cleveland, are viewed by Polster as a bellwether that could shape how other lawsuits are resolved. Several drug manufacturers have settled with the counties ahead of trial.</p>
<p>The attorneys say Polster&#8217;s comments about his intentions to get plaintiffs help during hearings, media interviews and public forums are evidence of his bias and prejudice. They cited a remark made during the first court hearing in January 2018 for the multidistrict litigation when Polster said, &#8220;My objective is to do something meaningful to abate the crisis and to do it in 2018.&#8221;</p>
<p>The motion said: &#8220;Under settled law, any one of these statements would be enough to cause a reasonable person to question a judge&#8217;s impartiality.&#8221;</p>
<p>A statement released Saturday by the executive committee for attorneys representing the government plaintiffs gave Polster their full-fledged support, calling him a judge with &#8220;great integrity, intelligence, and impartiality&#8221; who has served on the federal bench for decades.</p>
<p>The statement calls the defense attorneys&#8217; motion &#8220;a desperate move on the eve of trial by opioid companies that created, fueled and sustained the crisis following rulings by the court concluding that there is sufficient evidence to find that these companies created a public nuisance and conspired together to avoid regulation and sanctions.&#8221;</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/drug-companies-seek-to-disqualify-judge-in-opioids-suits/">Drug Companies Seek to Disqualify Judge in Opioids Suits</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists</a>.</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 16:12:15 -0500TruthDig.com News: Son of Bin Laden Killed in U.S. Strike, White House Sayshttps://www.truthdig.com/articles/son-of-bin-laden-killed-in-u-s-strike-white-house-says/
<p>WASHINGTON&#8212;The White House announced Saturday that <a href="https://apnews.com/814939215e824f82bc809199ac1a0d0f">Hamza bin Laden</a>, the son of the late al-Qaida leader who had become an increasingly prominent figure in the terrorist organization, was killed in a U.S. counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.</p>
<p>A statement issued in President Donald Trump&#8217;s name gave no further details, such as when Hamza bin Laden was killed or how the United States had confirmed his death. Administration officials would provide no more information beyond the three-sentence statement from the White House.</p>
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<p>American officials have said there are indications that the CIA, not the U.S. military, conducted the strike. The CIA declined comment on whether the agency was involved.</p>
<p>The White House statement said Hamza bin Laden&#8217;s death &#8220;not only deprives al-Qaida of important leadership skills and the symbolic connection to his father, but undermines important operational activities of the group.&#8221; It said Osama bin Laden&#8217;s son &#8220;was responsible for planning and dealing with various terrorist groups.&#8221;</p>
<p>The U.S. officials had suspected this summer that Hamza bin Laden was dead, based on intelligence reports and the fact that he had not been heard from in some time. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told Fox News Channel in a late August interview that it was &#8220;my understanding&#8221; that Hamza bin Laden was dead.</p>
<p>A U.S. official familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity about intelligence-gathering said bin laden was killed in the past 18 months. Confirming such a high-profile death can take a long time, said the official, who declined to say what led the U.S. to report bin Laden&#8217;s death with certainty.</p>
<p>The younger bin Laden had been viewed as an eventual heir to the leadership of al-Qaida, and the group&#8217;s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, had praised him in a 2015 video that appeared on jihadi websites, calling him a &#8220;lion from the den of al-Qaida.&#8221; Bin Laden&#8217;s death leaves Zawahiri with the challenge of finding a different successor.</p>
<p>The U.S. government in February said it <a href="https://rewardsforjustice.net/english">was offering $1 million</a> for help tracking down Hamza bin Laden as part of the State Department&#8217;s Rewards for Justice program. The department&#8217;s notice said he was married to a daughter of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, an al-Qaida leader and Egyptian charged for his role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. They were said to have two children, Osama and Khairiah, named after his parents.</p>
<p>He was named a &#8220;specially designated global terrorist&#8221; in January 2017, and he had released audio and video messages calling for attacks against the U.S. and its allies. To mark one 9/11 anniversary, al-Qaida superimposed a childhood photo of him over a photo of the World Trade Center.</p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/6a2e3b511c934f7b81902954f94a2030">Video released by the CIA</a> in 2017 that was seized during the 2011 U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden showed Hamza bin Laden with a trimmed mustache but no beard at his wedding. Previous images have only shown him as a child.</p>
<p>Hamza bin Laden is believed to have been born in 1989, the year of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, where his father became known among the mujahedeen fighters. His father returned to Saudi Arabia and later fled to Sudan after criticizing the kingdom for allowing U.S. troops to deploy in the country during the 1991 Gulf War. He later fled Sudan for Afghanistan in 1996, where he declared war against the U.S.</p>
<p>As al-Qaida&#8217;s leader, Osama bin Laden oversaw attacks that included the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as well as the bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen. He and others plotted and executed the 2001 attacks against the United States that led to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. U.S. Navy SEALs killed the elder bin Laden in a raid on a house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.</p>
<p>This past March, Saudi Arabia announced that it had <a href="https://apnews.com/2c52afad8fbe433f84f6eafb317c1ade">revoked the citizenship</a> of Hamza bin Laden. The kingdom stripped Osama bin Laden&#8217;s citizenship in 1994 while he was living in exile in Sudan when Hamza bin Laden was just a child. It was unclear where Hamza bin Laden was at the time of the Saudi action.</p>
<p>Hamza bin Laden began appearing in militant videos and recordings in 2015 as an al-Qaida spokesman.</p>
<p>&#8220;If you think that your sinful crime that you committed in Abbottabad has passed without punishment, then you thought wrong,&#8221; he said in his first audio recording.</p>
<p>After the Sept. 11 attacks, a U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan sought to topple the Taliban, an ally of al-Qaida, and seize the elder bin Laden. He escaped and split from his family as he crossed into Pakistan. Hamza was 12 when he saw his father for the last time — receiving a parting gift of prayer beads.</p>
<p>&#8220;It was as if we pulled out our livers and left them there,&#8221; he wrote of the separation.</p>
<p>Hamza and his mother followed other al-Qaida members into Pakistan and then Iran, where other al-Qaida leaders hid them, according to experts and analysis of documents seized after U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Iran later put the al-Qaida members on its soil into custody. During this time, Hamza married.</p>
<p>In March 2010, Hamza and others left Iranian custody. He went to Pakistan&#8217;s Waziristan province, where he asked for weapons training, according to a letter to the elder bin Laden. His mother left for Abbottabad, joining her husband in his hideout. On May 2, 2011, the Navy SEAL team raided Abbottabad, killing Osama bin Laden and his son Khalid, as well as others. Saber and other wives living in the house were imprisoned. Hamza again disappeared.</p>
<p>In August 2015, a video emerged on jihadi websites of al-Zawahri introducing &#8220;a lion from the den of al-Qaida&#8221; — Hamza bin Laden. Since then, Hamza had been featured in al-Qaida messages, delivering speeches on everything from the war in Syria to Donald Trump&#8217;s visit to Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip as president.</p>
<p>But he hadn&#8217;t been heard from since a message in March 2018, in which he threatened the rulers of Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Lolita C. Baldor in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/son-of-bin-laden-killed-in-u-s-strike-white-house-says/">Son of Bin Laden Killed in U.S. Strike, White House Says</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists</a>.</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 15:50:52 -0500Mother Jones Magazine: Raw Data: We Have Met the Meritocracy, and It Is Ushttps://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/09/raw-data-we-have-met-the-meritocracy-and-it-is-us/
<p>Via Tyler Cowen, here are a couple of interesting charts from Thomas Piketty about voting patterns in the US. Generally speaking, poor and working-class folks vote for Democrats, while more affluent people vote for Republicans. <a href="http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2019MaxPo.pdf">But 2016 was an odd outlier:</a></p>
<figure id="attachment_779742" class="inline-image alignnone" style="max-width: 1300px;"><img class="size-full wp-image-779742" src="https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_income_1948_2016.jpg" alt="" width="1300" height="644" srcset="https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_income_1948_2016.jpg 1590w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_income_1948_2016.jpg?resize=321,159 321w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_income_1948_2016.jpg?resize=630,312 630w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_income_1948_2016.jpg?resize=1300,644 1300w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_income_1948_2016.jpg?resize=990,491 990w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_income_1948_2016.jpg?resize=642,318 642w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px" /></figure>
<p>There&#8217;s a big range here, but in general the richer you are the more likely you are to vote for a Republican. That&#8217;s held true in every single presidential election since 1948—until you get to 2016. In that year, the top two income deciles (D9 and D10) suddenly diverged from their usual historical pattern and voted for Democrats by about 30 points more than they should have.</p>
<p>30 points! That&#8217;s a huge divergence from the norm, and it holds up even at the very tippy top of the income ladder. The upper middle class and the rich like Donald Trump way, way less than they like the average Republican.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m not entirely sure what to make of this, aside from the fact that maybe this is the wrong time for Democrats to suddenly decide they don&#8217;t want to fundraise from rich people. But it&#8217;s worth pondering.</p>
<p>And as long as we&#8217;re looking at this stuff, here&#8217;s another chart showing one of the ways that voting patterns have changed:</p>
<figure id="attachment_779743" class="inline-image alignnone" style="max-width: 1300px;"><img class="size-full wp-image-779743" src="https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_education_1948_2016.jpg" alt="" width="1300" height="654" srcset="https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_education_1948_2016.jpg 1572w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_education_1948_2016.jpg?resize=321,162 321w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_education_1948_2016.jpg?resize=630,317 630w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_education_1948_2016.jpg?resize=1300,654 1300w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_education_1948_2016.jpg?resize=990,498 990w, https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/blog_piketty_elections_education_1948_2016.jpg?resize=642,323 642w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px" /></figure>
<p>As you can see, high-income voters have historically favored Republicans by about 12 points, and that&#8217;s remained constant until very recently. The big change has been education. In 1948, highly-educated voters preferred Republicans by 16 points. That&#8217;s changed pretty steadily, and in the 2016 election highly-educated voters preferred Democrats by 24 points. That&#8217;s a swing of 40 points.</p>
<p>In case you haven&#8217;t noticed, we are having a meritocracy moment right now, and it&#8217;s a bit of a paradox. The consensus among liberals is that the meritocracy is bad, but increasingly liberals make up most of the meritocracy. I have a football game to watch right now,¹ so I&#8217;ll leave comment on this for later. But it&#8217;s worth thinking about.</p>
<p>¹A very egalitarian sport! OTOH, I&#8217;ll be rooting for USC, a very elite school. Contradictions and paradoxes are everywhere.</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 14:29:14 -0500TruthDig.com News: Yemen’s Houthi Rebels Attack Key Saudi Oil Siteshttps://www.truthdig.com/articles/yemens-houthi-rebels-attack-key-saudi-oil-sites/
<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates&#8212;Yemen&#8217;s Houthi rebels launched drone attacks on the world&#8217;s largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oil field Saturday, sparking huge fires at a vulnerable chokepoint for global energy supplies.</p>
<p>It remained unclear hours later whether anyone was injured at the Abqaiq oil processing facility and the Khurais oil field or what effect the assault would have on oil production. Rising smoke from the fires at the sites could be seen by satellites.</p>
<p>The attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis in the war against a Saudi-led coalition comes after weeks of similar drone assaults on the kingdom&#8217;s oil infrastructure, but none of the earlier strikes appeared to have caused the same amount of damage. The attack likely will heighten tensions further across the Persian Gulf amid <a href="https://apnews.com/37af97677c2c4cd98d751e1075f0c13b">an escalating crisis</a> between the U.S. and Iran over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.</p>
<p>First word of the assault came in online videos of giant fires at the Abqaiq facility, some 330 kilometers (205 miles) northeast of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Machine-gun fire could be heard in several clips alongside the day&#8217;s first Muslim call to prayers, suggesting security forces tried to bring down the drones just before dawn.</p>
<p>In daylight, Saudi state television aired a segment with its local correspondent near a police checkpoint, a thick plume of smoke visible behind him.</p>
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<p>The fires began after the sites were &#8220;targeted by drones,&#8221; the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. It said an investigation was underway.</p>
<p>Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant, did not respond to questions from The Associated Press. The kingdom hopes soon to offer a sliver of the company in an initial public offering.</p>
<p>In a short address aired by the Houthi&#8217;s Al-Masirah satellite news channel, military spokesman Yahia Sarie said the rebels launched 10 drones in their coordinated attack after receiving &#8220;intelligence&#8221; support from those inside the kingdom. He warned that attacks by the rebels would only get worse if the war continues.</p>
<p>&#8220;The only option for the Saudi government is to stop attacking us,&#8221; Sarie said.</p>
<p>The rebels hold Yemen&#8217;s capital, Sanaa, and other territory in the Arab world&#8217;s poorest country. Since 2015, a Saudi-led coalition has fought to reinstate the internationally recognized Yemeni government.</p>
<p>The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh said it was unaware of any injuries to Americans. Saudi Aramco employs a number of U.S. citizens, some of whom live in guarded compounds near the site.</p>
<p>&#8220;These attacks against critical infrastructure endanger civilians, are unacceptable, and sooner or later will result in innocent lives being lost,&#8221; U.S. Ambassador John Abizaid, a former Army general, said.</p>
<p>Saudi Aramco describes its Abqaiq oil processing facility in Buqyaq as &#8220;the largest crude oil stabilization plant in the world.&#8221;</p>
<p>The facility processes sour crude oil into sweet crude, then transports it onto transshipment points on the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea or to refineries for local production. Estimates suggest it can process up to 7 million barrels of crude oil a day. By comparison, Saudi Arabia produced 9.65 million barrels of crude oil a day in July.</p>
<p>The plant has been targeted in the past by militants. Al-Qaida-claimed suicide bombers tried but failed to attack the oil complex in February 2006.</p>
<p>The Khurais oil field is believed to produce over 1 million barrels of crude oil a day. It has estimated reserves of over 20 billion barrels of oil, according to Aramco.</p>
<p>There was no immediate impact on global oil prices as markets were closed for the weekend. Benchmark Brent crude had been trading at just above $60 a barrel.</p>
<p>While Saudi Arabia has taken steps to protect itself and its oil infrastructure, analysts had warned that Abqaiq remained vulnerable. The Rapidan Energy Group, a Washington-based advisory group, warned in May that &#8220;a successful attack could lead to a monthslong disruption of most Saudi production and nearly all spare production.&#8221; It called Abqaiq, close to the eastern Saudi city of Dammam, &#8220;the most important oil facility in the world.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies separately issued its own warning just last month.</p>
<p>&#8220;Though the Abqaiq facility is large, the stabilization process is concentrated in specific areas . including storage tanks and processing and compressor trains — which greatly increases the likelihood of a strike successfully disrupting or destroying its operations,&#8221; the center said.</p>
<p>The war has become the world&#8217;s worst humanitarian crisis. The violence has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine and killed more than 90,000 people since 2015, according to the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location &amp; Event Data Project, or ACLED, which tracks the conflict.</p>
<p>Since the start of the Saudi-led war, Houthi rebels have been using drones in combat. The first appeared to be off-the-shelf, hobby-kit-style drones. Later, versions nearly identical to Iranian models turned up. Iran denies supplying the Houthis with weapons, although the U.N., the West and Gulf Arab nations say Tehran does.</p>
<p>The rebels have flown drones into the radar arrays of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Patriot missile batteries, according to Conflict Armament Research, disabling them and allowing the Houthis to fire ballistic missiles into the kingdom unchallenged. The Houthis launched drone attacks targeting Saudi Arabia&#8217;s crucial East-West Pipeline in May. In August, Houthi drones struck Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Shaybah oil field.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/yemens-houthi-rebels-attack-key-saudi-oil-sites/">Yemen&#8217;s Houthi Rebels Attack Key Saudi Oil Sites</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists</a>.</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 14:20:58 -0500Mother Jones Magazine: Attorney General Barr Gives Award to Lawyers for Backing Brett Kavanaughhttps://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/barr-justice-department-award-brett-kavanaugh/
<p>Last year, the Justice Department gave the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, the second highest honor in the department, to prosecutors who secured the conviction of Ahmed Abu Khattala, a ringleader of the Benghazi terrorist attack.</p>
<p>This year, the <em>New York Times</em> is reporting that Attorney General William Barr is giving the award to DOJ lawyers who worked “to support the nomination” of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-award.html">Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh</a>.</p>
<p>Former federal prosecutors blasted the news as an unprecedented perversion of justice. “What a joke,” tweeted Elie Honig, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. “This prestigious award typically goes to prosecutors who make the biggest cases against terrorists, corrupt politicians, drug cartels, organized crime enterprises, etc. And now AG Barr is using it to honor&#8230; Team Kavanaugh.”</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">What a joke. </p>
<p>This prestigious award typically goes to prosecutors who make the biggest cases against terrorists, corrupt politicians, drug cartels, organized crime enterprises, etc. </p>
<p>And now AG Barr is using it to honor&#8230; Team Kavanaugh. <a href="https://t.co/HhOzz8XDae">https://t.co/HhOzz8XDae</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Elie Honig (@eliehonig) <a href="https://twitter.com/eliehonig/status/1172677592161357824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Kavanaugh was accused of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/16/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-sexual-assault.html">sexual assault</a> during his confirmation process by Christine Blasey Ford. Investigations into her accusations, and Kavanaugh&#8217;s response, nearly derailed his nomination. Then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tapped one hundred Justice Department lawyers to review Kavanaugh’s paper trail, which the <em>Times</em> reported some <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-award.html">saw as</a>&nbsp;“an unusual insertion of politics into federal law enforcement.” The FBI did its own investigation of Ford’s accusations, but it was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/us/politics/trump-kavanaugh-fbi.html">limited in scope</a> by the White House and did not interview key sources, including Ford.</p>
<p>Kavanaugh has been a reliable ally of President Donald Trump on the court, while Barr has emerged as perhaps the president’s most high-profile defender inside the administration, shielding Trump from public criticism and indictment following release of the Mueller report.</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 13:50:27 -0500Mother Jones Magazine: Civil Rights Groups Challenge Trump’s “Racially Discriminatory Scheme” to Skew Redistrictinghttps://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/citizenship-census-lawsuit/
<p>In July, the Trump administration abandoned its push to add a <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/trump-backs-down-on-the-census-citizenship-question/">controversial question about US citizenship</a> to the 2020 census after the Supreme Court blocked the move. Instead, President Donald Trump issued an executive order instructing the Census Bureau to <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/trump-dropped-the-census-citizenship-question-he-could-still-shift-power-to-white-republicans/">collect citizenship data</a> using administrative records. He said in a White House Rose Garden ceremony that the information could prove useful since &#8220;some states may want to draw state and local legislative districts based upon the voter-eligible population,” potentially excluding non-citizens, non-voters, and the young from counting toward political representation.&nbsp;</p>
<aside class="pullquote-left">Drawing districts based on eligible voters “would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats” and “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.”</aside>
<p>On Friday, civil rights groups filed the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/13/760356414/latinx-advocacy-groups-sue-to-block-citizenship-data-release-by-trump-officials">first lawsuit</a> challenging the executive order, claiming it was “motivated by a racially discriminatory scheme to reduce Latino political representation and increase the overrepresentation of non-Latino Whites, thereby advantaging White voters at Latino voters’ expense.”</p>
<p>For decades, state legislative and Congressional districts have been drawn based on total population. If districts were instead based only on citizens or eligible voters, that could lead to a <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/trump-dropped-the-census-citizenship-question-he-could-still-shift-power-to-white-republicans/">major shift in power</a> from Democratic to Republican areas, as many Democrats represent areas with concentrations of non-citizens and non-voters, including children. If those people are not counted in legislative apportionment, that would benefit Republicans, who tend to represent whiter, more homogenous areas with fewer non-citizens and young people.</p>
<p>Over the past decade, Republicans have sought to <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/the-new-attack-on-one-person-one-vote/">make such a change</a>. The late Republican gerrymandering expert Thomas Hofeller, who also led the behind-the-scenes efforts to add the citizenship question, wrote in a 2015 study that drawing districts based on eligible voters instead of the total population would “<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/architect-of-gop-gerrymandering-was-behind-trumps-census-citizenship-question/">would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats</a>” and “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.”</p>
<p>The <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6408614/LUPE-Citizenship-Data-Sept-13-2019-Complaint.pdf">lawsuit</a>, filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Asian Americans Advancing Justice, cited Hofeller’s study as evidence of the “discriminatory motivation” behind Trump’s executive order. They also allege that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau, “exceeded his statutory authority over the conduct of the decennial census” by agreeing to Trump’s order, since Congress, not the president, has constitutional oversight of the census. The lawsuit was filed before the same Maryland federal court where a judge <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/federal-judge-in-maryland-blocks-trumps-administration-plan-to-add-citizenship-question-to-2020-census/2019/04/05/3db89fb0-57c7-11e9-9136-f8e636f1f6df_story.html">struck down the citizenship question</a> in April.</p>
<p>The Census Bureau disclosed this week that no states have so far requested citizenship data, but that it nonetheless would <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/census-citizenship-data-redistricting-file">make the information</a> available in 2021, when states begin drawing new legislative lines following the 2020 census. Who will count for purposes of political representation is expected to be a major fight throughout the next redistricting cycle. &nbsp;</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 12:51:29 -0500Mother Jones Magazine: Seth Rich’s Family Just Won a Legal Victory Against Fox Newshttps://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/seth-richs-family-just-won-a-legal-victory-against-fox-news/
<p>A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that a lawsuit filed by the parents of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich against Fox News <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/13/760681773/appeals-court-reinstates-lawsuit-against-fox-news-over-seth-rich-story">should move forward</a>, finding that the network’s retracted reporting about his death amounted to “extreme and outrageous conduct.”</p>
<p>Fox News played an instrumental role in helping push the conspiracy theory that the 27-year-old Rich, who was murdered in a botched robbery in July 2016, had contact with Wikileaks, which released thousands of Hillary Clinton campaign emails during the 2016 presidential race.</p>
<aside class="pullquote-left">The court found that Rich’s parents were subjected to “a deliberate and malicious campaign of harassment.”</aside>
<p>Rich’s parents, Joel and Mary, sued Fox News in March 2018 alleging that the network set out “to take the conspiracy theory from the fringe to the front pages and screens of the mainstream media.” A district court dismissed the suit in August 2018, but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/f352de38-8978-4136-9522-292c319deaa7/1/doc/18-2321_opn.pdf">reinstated the lawsuit</a> on Friday. “We have no trouble concluding that—taking their allegations as true—the Riches plausibly alleged what amounted to a campaign of emotional torture,” wrote Judge Guido Calabresi.</p>
<p>The lawsuit describes a lurid and elaborate plot where a Fox News reporter, Malia Zimmerman, and contributor, Ed Butowsky, befriended the Riches and urged them to hire a private investigator, Rod Wheeler, without disclosing that he was a paid contributor to Fox News. Without the Riches&#8217; knowledge, the suit says Wheeler coordinated with Donald Trump’s White House and fed Fox News false information peddling the Wikileaks conspiracy theory, which resulted in a May 2017 Fox News story: “Slain DNC Staffer Had Contact with WikiLeaks Say Multiple Sources.”</p>
<p>Rich’s family asked Fox News to retract the story, which they did five days later. But Fox News guests and hosts like Sean Hannity continued to peddle the false story for months afterward. The Rich family then sued the network for “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”</p>
<p>The Second Circuit panel found that Rich’s parents’ allegations “plausibly rise to the level of extreme and outrageous conduct” by Fox News, who subjected the family to “a deliberate and malicious campaign of harassment.”</p>
<p>The appeals court remanded the case to a district court in New York and ordered that it be reopened.</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 11:30:04 -0500The GrayZone: Ex-CIA analyst on why he predicted John Bolton’s firinghttps://thegrayzone.com/2019/09/14/ex-cia-analyst-on-why-he-predicted-john-boltons-firing/
<p>Ex-CIA analyst John Kiriakou discusses why he accurately predicted John Bolton’s ouster as National Security Adviser; who might replace him;&#8230;</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/09/14/ex-cia-analyst-on-why-he-predicted-john-boltons-firing/">Ex-CIA analyst on why he predicted John Bolton’s firing</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://thegrayzone.com">The Grayzone</a>.</p>Sat, 14 Sep 2019 10:42:42 -0500